Factorio is a strategy-logistics game, somewhat similar to the Anno series and Dwarf Fortress, while being wholly unique within it's genre. While still in active development, the game is extremely playable and addictive-- you must build an increasingly complex factory to accommodate more and more advanced goods, both as intermediate parts (such as circuit boards) and finished goods (such as modules, turrets, and belts). The devs take this very seriously and the game is virtually bug free, with smart and intuitive gameplay, and a near-infinite number of ways to accomplish any task.

True Multiplayer is coming, but so's Christmas, and waiting is for nerds, so Let's All Play Factorio!

This is going to be a Legacy game similar to the Dwarf Fortress games of yore; goons will take turns with a save file with very limited time per turn. In single player, you might take your time to carefully figure out exactly what needs to be done, build it, maybe tear it down and rebuild it once or twice, since the in-game "timer" is extremely lax to the point that you might not even notice it (I'm sure someone will argue with me that it even counts (I'm talking about the evolution clock)). But with only one hour per turn, you'll be frantically planting things down just to get them done before the next guy comes by and fucks it up.

How will this work?

Like I said, one hour per turn per player. To get us started, I... got us started. Try to get your save within 10 seconds or so of the hour (going by the in-game clock) so if you get caught mid-job, oh well! Hope the other guy figures out where you were going with that octopus of belts! Ideally, send the autosave that caught you at the top of the hour.

Post in the thread if you want to be added to the list, as well as the preferred method of how you want the save file sent to you (email, PM, Mediafire, or whatever), and what turn you might like. All you need is the base Factorio alpha, updated to 0.10.0. This game will be run purely vanilla, no mods. Hopefully you're at least aware of how to play (I recommend running through the campaign at least, it's a good tutorial), if not, the rest of us will have to work harder.

No cheating or scumming. Obviously this is unenforceable, so it's on the honor code. Please no cheating or scumming (that is, reloading an earlier save to try to do better). Once your turn is up, shrug and upload the save. Don't be a jerk, play in the spirit of the thread!

You'll be given a day or two for your turn, before we move to the next guy. If you need longer, say so, we can be patient up to a point.

Ideally we switch goons every turn without repeat, but if there aren't enough people, repeat we shall.

A typical first run of Freeplay (which is what we'll be playing) might take 20-25 hours, so 20-25 turns. To further give us a clock, I'd like to restrict us to just 24 hours- will goons be frantic and effective enough, or will schizophrenic design doom us? I know there are a few goons who are highly effective who might put us way ahead of schedule if they join

Ideally, people won't post their full until the save is on the next turn, just to keep the guy guessing. On that note, no fair watching the replay

On that note, we are going by in-game clock. Hitting Esc to pause will pause the clock, as well as Shift-Space pausing, and this is legal. Dying to aliens and reloading a save is fine, but don't be a jerk to get around the savescum rule, what's wrong with you.

FAQ - added as people ask questions more than once I guessWhat if I want to participate, but my wiritng skills aren't worth even 49 shades of grey?
Take a bunch of screenshots and caption them with something simple. Maybe throw a joke in, it's not so bad! The gameplay is what's important. If you really can't write at all, you can send me the screenshots and captions ('made a circuit board factory here') and I'll throw some bad jokes in for you.

Turn One: Evilreaver -- Planetfall
Looks like the computer found a world for humanity to colonize!

A highly customized world, as seen here

Of course, I was informed about this when I was yanked out of cryosleep and shot at the planet surface in the one terraformer pod. Well that's fine, I landed mostly alright.

Looks like we're on some sort of desert world, or perhaps just the Arizona of this world. So, as the sole member of the terraforming team, it's my duty, nay, privilege to prepare this world for the colonists still sleeping in the ship above. What do I have for tools?

Where's my Thorazine? Oh, sure, look, they got like eight boxes of Mike's inhalers, but Mike's not on this pod you rear end in a top hat computer. Without my meds... poo poo, I might just go insane. That's just what humanity needs, the one terraforming engineer to go insane. I don't even want to think about it. So let's get to work! First things first, let's strip down those inhalers and make a real tool, a pickaxe. Nothin' to it.

Plant down the miner and work right alongside it. The first coal I mine feeds the miner, and after that we work together for our first load of coal. Simple enough.

The first step to terraforming is typically to let the pod oxygenate the atmosphere and build the various landing amenities, but it looks like since the air is already breathable, something must have gone wrong with the computer. Now it's just me and a pickaxe, working this coal.

I pick up the miner and drop it on the local Iron deposit, then plug the feed chute into my comfortable fireplace. I take my coal and feed them both a bit...

While I head a bit south to get some juicy stone for more fireplaces. Miners need furnaces as part of the recipe, so I get a lot. I was lucky enough to have resources in easy walking distance, sometimes they can be kinda far away or you have to go looking for a cluster.... or Mineral Clod, you might say. Why would you say that?

As the first night falls, I use the metal smelted so far to make two more miners and plug them in to each other. Efficiency! I can then take the stored coal out of them as they mine, so I can feed the iron miner/smelters. I also have a copper miner/smelter off to the south somewhere. Off being Copper Stabbed, as it were.

This goes on for some time, me gathering metal and distributing coal by hand...

Now we're getting somewhere. This is about 10 minutes in. (Control-clicking a furnace takes everything out in one motion!)

At this point, iron is coming in at a good clip, and we can start branching out. Already I'm feeling the shakes from not having wifi, so maybe it's time we got some electricity up in here. The computer has specifications for boilers and steam engines, so off we go!

Boilers placed, and complaining about not having fuel. I don't have infinite arms, I can only do one thing at a time!

Steam engines placed. Not ideal to bend them like that (ideally they are placed in a straight line), but I'm short on time and I gotta get wifi going. Facebook's not going to update itself! This is roughly 15 minutes in.

So I move the miners a hair and build some belts and 'inserters' (robotic grabbing arms), and voila, the power station is functionally online. I have some coal-powered inserters feeding coal to the miners-- and as a bonus, they are smart enough to feed themselves coal when needed, too! The whole thing is nice and self-sufficient for now, with a healthy surplus for the boilers. You might see in the upper right-hand corner that no research is being done- now that we have power, let's fix that.

That's the ticket: Large Scale Production is my middle name! My mother was a strange woman. This tech opens up Assembers, which are machines that can build some simple things-- notably, Science packs (those red flasks).

Since we can't automate automation (yet), we have to put the science together by hand. Lazy computers. It takes forever and hamstrings me from doing more useful things, like anything else. But it has to get done, and it has to get done quick. My hair is starting to itch.

The next few minutes go by fairly uneventfully, but far too quickly. Time is ticking away. But what's this?

Seems like some of the wildlife is attracted to my noisy, smoky machines. Rampaging elephants maybe?

They're like beetles, except they just ran up and bit my coal miners in half! They were biting my whole operation, and when I shot them, they bit me too! Well, normally first contact would be a big deal, but these things are just a nuisance. What should I call them, seems like they deserve a name. They sure do seem to like biting...

I dub them "Those Assholes".

That should show Those Assholes who's boss.

Before I can get them set up, they come back for round 2. This might be a problem...

By the way, the computer says the Colony Ship in orbit is due to come down in just over 24 hours. With Those Assholes coming by with just a little smoke (too bad there's no trees to soak up the pollution), the huge ship coming through re-entry is going to piss them off for sure. We'll be, I dunno, Ship Murdered. The only way we'll be able to hold them is with a Rocket Defense, an incredibly advanced technology that requires massive resources. 24 hours is a tight budget, but not un-doable, at least for someone who can remain sane that long.

Now, it's my fault, I got wrapped up in the frantic base building that I forgot to take pictures for a while. I got some electric miners and put them on the iron and copper deposits nearby, then quickly set up a furnace hub. I also transitioned the stone mine to a stone-brick-furnace-thing, so we can get walls built. Those Assholes are persistent, and I had to shake off quite a few waves.

Furnace hub! Using conveyors and a ton of belts, this will give us the metal we need, and is pretty expandable for later on when we need more volume. Of course, in my haste I missed that I would basically be building right on top of a copper deposit Well, too late to change course now! This is about 45 minutes in. I already hear voices. I can only hope that I remain sane enough to get the job done, though staying in my current state of mind long enough is laughable. I've got maybe 15 minutes before I lose myself. What comes next?

Well, just to keep me sane, I set up some assemblers to make things that I've been making waaaay too many of by hand. Time to get poo poo done!

Ammunition clips. I've been burning them up (I made a SMG, the pistol couldn't cut the mustard) and the turrets have been chewing through them like it's D-Day. On a very small, insect-like scale I suppose. Big insects. My metaphors need some work.

I also automate conveyor belts since I'm drat sure gonna need more of them.

I'm starting to see double, but it's time to focus. If nothing else, we have to get red science working before I lose my mind, because damned if I'm making another one of those by hand.

Red science takes Gears (made from iron plates in the center assembler) and Copper Plates. The gears are put in the four outter assemblers, where they are combined with copper plates, then sent south to the labs. This is an in-progess shot. Simple recipe, and this complex of 5 will do nicely-- though you might notice what I placed wrong here, can you see it? This is about 55-ish minutes in. I'm ahead of schedule! Or I was until I had to tear it down to fix it

I do a few last-minute tasks, including...
...setting up a radar tower. The bugs hate this thing, so I put it by the turrets. For some reason, the guns have a hard time tracking and shooting things (near them??), so I put up a stonehenge to annoy Those Assholes. I don't have time to see if it works before the 60 minute mark.

...To Be Continued, by the next brave goon in line. I hope I gave you a good jumping off point!

Evilreaver fucked around with this message at Jun 27, 2014 around 21:45

I am going to use fraps for screenshots, when I get the save. I have shadowplay available to make videos too. Probably just going to stick with a screenshot report though.

I have to say, the amount you got done in one hour is impressive. I tend to start off a little more slowly, and try to stay under the bug radar. I can totally see that not being very interesting for a lets play though.

I will have to decide whether or not I will exterminate any close-by nests, as you are already being attacked. On the one hand, it is probably the right thing to do. On the other hand, it might make things less interesting for the future players.

I'm down. If everyone is cool with it then I'll probably stream my hour on Twitch, announcing in advance when it'd be so everyone can watch. That way people get a real-time look at how the game plays (and me bumbling around the horrible spaghetti maze of conveyor belts)

I'm down. If everyone is cool with it then I'll probably stream my hour on Twitch, announcing in advance when it'd be so everyone can watch. That way people get a real-time look at how the game plays (and me bumbling around the horrible spaghetti maze of conveyor belts)

No, but if there's any interest I could start - I have an account and I've streamed other things before. I'm nearing the end of my first playthrough so if there is I could start up along with my next game.

I saw a man in the bathroom of my crashed ship. I threw a rock at his face, and watched him shatter into a million tiny shards. Fresh from my victory in combat, I have claimed this small colony for my own. I believe I shall make it a democracy. Seeing as I appear to be the sole resident of this planet, I nominate myself to be president. I accept my nomination, and cast my vote for myself.

The ballots are in, and I narrowly win the election by a single vote! I wonder what the doctors on my home planet would think if they could see me now. All they could ever do was harp at me to take medicine for multiple personality disorder. Bullocks to that!

As the newly elected president of Filthyburg, I plan to make some sweeping changes around here. Lets survey what we are starting with.
Our land has been minimally explored. As president, I will have order scouting parties be sent out. Our pollution extends outside of the known borders.

The majority of my settlement can be seen here. We appear to have a fledgling red beaker industry. Our furnaces have been nicely laid out. We have a confusing assembler 2 factory, no doubt the work of some madman, that is not being fed the iron plates it needs to actually function.

A number of old burner inserters appear to be scattered about. We will have to replace them with electric miners. A damaged group of turrets suggests that unknown assailants might have approached from the north. I shall have to explore in that direction.

I plan to make security a prime concern. In order to fight off the unknown assailants, I will need steel. My first official act as mayor is to set up a temporary steel operation. I set two furnaces to work, putting steel bars into a box.

I lovingly begin crafting 20 green science packs, with the goal of researching more effective ammunition. As I craft these, I decide to do some scouting.

I get back just in time to help fend off a rather large biter attack, from two directions at once. Our radar is destroyed, and the turrets aren't in good shape. This problem needs to be dealt with.

My scouting reveals that we already have two alien bases being agitated by our pollution, and several more right on the border. A particularly large base to the southeast might be troublesome once our pollution reaches that far.
The two bases under our pollution cloud right now are a menace, and need to be dealt with. I quickly put the green science I made into our labs. We have just enough steel from the two new furnaces to make armor. Further steel will go into making piercing ammo.

Our base desperately needs to be refit so that it makes green science, as it is running out of useful red-only research, but security is a more pressing concern. I tear down our red science factory, amongst the biter attacks. As soon as I have enough piercing ammo, I go and take out the base to the north and the east.
This should take off some of the heat, and give me time to build.

I spend some time retooling our science line. Filthyburg will be a leader in science!

I research advanced material processing, and work on getting our metal lines up to snuff with steel furnaces. Well, the iron line anyway. We aren't burning through enough copper yet.

I greatly expand our fair town's mining operations, to feed the new furnaces.

Faster belts should be useful in the future. I am not laying any during my term, but future presidents might appreciate having a stockpile. We are also making a small cache of ammo.

For the remainder of my term, no more attacks happened, as I bought the fight to any bases that my pollution cloud touched. I take out two more biter bases with the presidential SMG.

That does not mean that the terms of my predecessors will be without conflict. There are still enemies in our midst.

My term has been a fruitful one. My strong policy on bringing the war to the biters has helped keep us safe, and I have made Filthyberg a leader of green-science technology.

I have left the next president with some oil-related gear, which I believe will be the future. Said president will also need to shore up our power generation, as we are at running at full capacity. Of course, I plan to run again, and being the incumbant I plan on winning. My approval rating is 100%, after all. How can I lose?

Filthy Monkey fucked around with this message at Jun 11, 2014 around 21:28

The radar was a sad casualty of war. In fact, I think I forgot to build a replacement. I spent more time doing manual scouting, as I wanted to find the offending bases right now. Would be a good idea to get a replacement down though, at least once the base gets more power.

Assembler 2 assembler got torn down with the red science setup. It wasn't actually making anything, as the final assembler had no iron plate input. Not a bad idea to have an assembler assembler though. Just didn't get to it.

Seems like these pansy rear end flower huggers running this here base don't seem to get it! They got one of these here "main buses" goin through, and look at all this science! It sickens my heart yo see such potential put to such....mundane use.

They could have at least started the Bullet production? What's a good factory without bullet production? What are we supposed ta do when the natives go native, throw the chests full of rock we have at them?

And the last guy seems to have taken out our only Radar Dish! We're building blind out here! This is treason! This ain't right!

Now we're gettin somewhere! Wait why did everything just turn off

Yeah ok that's a good reason I suppose. Still, no stopping progress

Better at least! I hate putting all these damned guns together myself though. What's the point of being the president if I can't implement a required-open-carry law? We'll need guns for all the colonists then.

And see? This is why. Around Biters, Never Choose A Lighter Caliber

After traipsing across half of this damned desert planet we seem to be trying to inhabit, I've come across the frightening nest of natives.

We have always been at war with Western Desert.

I'm gonna need more rock to remind them who they're dealing with. Time to Create Jobs and Expand The National Defense Budget!

In fact, I've been running out of Metal! It turns out that last hippy-president-in-traitor was using our Hard Won Metal to build ROADS of all things! After upgrading the main metal lines with red belts, it's time to cancel all Non Essential Public Works Programs in favor of Gun Budget.

I see room for expansion

I've had to expand power production and mining operations, and this seems to have pissed off more locals. As a nod to those damned environmentalists that keep saying we're going to manage to ruin this planet before we even colonize it, I've implemented a Green Energy Program

That is impressive, and quite funny. I considered encircling a biter base with turrets and pollution myself, but decided to leave the insanity to future leaders. Green science and infrastructure is boring, but it helps set up future turns.

It looks like power is going to be an issue for the next guy in line, what with all of those radar stations. Looking forward to seeing how the craziness progresses.

In a game such as this, the gains and throughput are pretty much exponential- the earlier projects are started, the longer they bear fruit and the more work is done. The more time spent on setup, the faster the late-game goes.

Of course, if you have to stop every minute or so to clean out biters and repair, you thus end up losing a huge chunk of time, so a proactive defense pays for itself. The scale here, though, is... something else.

Iím a plumber. I like pipes. Big pipes, little pipes. Stuff that goes in pipes. So, letís make pipes! And underground pipes Ė those are nifty. And what elseÖ oh, big boilers full of pipes and steam.
Do you know what else looks like a pipe?

A gun barrel. Letís have some more of those too!
And hereís a problem with pipes: They take a lot of iron. So letís get more of that!
Pipes pipes pipes. Love me some pipes.

Letís have some more of the shooty pipes. For the night is dark, and full of terrors.
Weíre still not getting enough power out of these boilers. Letís take a lookÖ

Now hereís your problem Ė not getting enough water pressure. We need more water to supply thatÖ letís take care of some of that. Should be an easy fix, just let meÖ right thereÖ and that looks about right.

Alright, let me take a looksee.

Nope, that just wonít do.

That there is just poorly designed andÖ man, these plumbers think they can just throw pipe all over and itíll magically deliver water wherever itís needed. You need to think about this.

So hereís the bad news: weíre going to have to rip that out and start over. Yes, itíll be expensive, but youíll save money over the long term, seeing as you wonít need to call me every time this little doohickey here breaks... Whatís that?

Yes, youíre right, that is called a ďflangeĒ. Look at you with your fancy learnin'.

While weíre at it, letís look at the long term Ė youíll want to get yourself off of coal as well. Its so last century. Oil, thatís where itís at. Itís a clean source of energy, right?
Black gold. Texas tea.

Ah, good, weíve got plenty of pipe to lay, so our iron problem seems to be solved for the time being.
Yep, here we go. I gotta run down to the supply yard, get me some pumps. Pumps means we can consolidate our water sources, and get water to its destination faster. And the best part? I can start making lube jokes!

So, letís get lubed up
Lube goes into electric engines, and then we can get those pumps primed, our water flowing, the boilers fed, and everything just going hunky dory. Power will flow, our factories will make more pipe, and then we can get all sorts of stuff flowing.

Oil is always a fun addition to a base, since it doesn't follow the rules of belts-and-inserters the rest of the factory does, instead relying on carefully-lain pipes and several plants and tanks. As a bonus, it is very difficult to visualize in your head unless you have a perfected blueprint, and even then it's often pretty difficult to incorporate cleanly into a factory. This is where our project is going to start to go off the rails

E: Hagop I tried sending you a reminder PM but it looks like they're disabled or something.

Evilreaver fucked around with this message at Jun 12, 2014 around 19:37

Oil is always a fun addition to a base, since it doesn't follow the rules of belts-and-inserters the rest of the factory does, instead relying on carefully-lain pipes and several plants and tanks. As a bonus, it is very difficult to visualize in your head unless you have a perfected blueprint, and even then it's often pretty difficult to incorporate cleanly into a factory. This is where our project is going to start to go off the rails

E: Hagop I tried sending you a reminder PM but it looks like they're disabled or something.

Yep they were sorry about that they should be on now.

*edit: I expect I should have the update up some time around 10PM EST barring computer problems.